“Listen to this,” said Whit. “‘The most serious adverse effect is aplastic anemia, a bone marrow toxicity that is generally fatal.’”
“Are you kidding?”
He read on: “‘There is no treatment and there is no way of predicting who may or may not get this side effect. The effect usually occurs weeks or months after chloramphenicol treatment has been stopped, and there may be a genetic predisposition. The highest risk is with oral chloramphenicol, affecting one in twenty-four thousand.’”
“One in twenty-four thousand that you could die? Holy shit, those are pretty bad odds. I mean, it’s better than Russian roulette, but still. I don’t think I’d lay money on a bet that had a one in twenty-four-thousand chance of killing me.”
“No shit.”
“Listen, man, if you die, I’ll be there for you.”
“Fuck off.”
“You know that shop in town that makes the cocoa-pod coffins? I bet we could get them to do a Burro battery coffin. We should probably order it now.”
“Just watch the road.”
As far as I was concerned our primary destination was the fetish market, but Whit kept insisting the trip was actually about picking up a hand sample of his new battery saver, which had just cleared customs. For about fifteen hundred dollars Whit had hired an industrial designer in Madison, Wisconsin, to work up the model, then worked with his partner Three-Sixty in Guangzhou to source a Chinese manufacturer. The design was simple: a hollow plastic shell the shape and size of a D battery with two poles and internal wiring that could replace one of the Burro batteries in a two-battery flashlight. The first sample, which had arrived in the early fall, fit a little too tightly; it was a little too long, and Jan observed that it needed a beveled edge around the “positive” end, which would make it easier to fit in next to the real battery in some devices. So we were down in Accra picking up this second version. But as soon as Whit stuck it in a typical radio (he had brought one with him), he realized the new version had a new problem: the beveled rim made it nearly impossible to grab the thing with a finger and pull it out. It needed some kind of “affordance”—a plastic nib or ridge that the finger could grasp. Before we even got to the fetish market he had emailed his designer in Wisconsin with the new request.
As Saturday trips to Accra go, it was a fairly productive day. Traffic wasn’t bad, Whit got one step closer to a usable battery saver, I crossed what was, in my mind, a major Ghanaian attraction off my travel list, and we shared a charming lunch of wood-fired pizza (the kind of Western food you can only get in Accra) with Rose, her sister Gracelove, and their friend Sarah, all of whom graciously pretended to be amused and entertained by the doddering old graybeards who were picking up the check. After dropping off that trio at the sprawling and crowded Makola market (their own fetish hunt ran to shoes, handbags, and fabric), gassing up, and stopping at the Shop-rite for precious cargo like Parmesan cheese and olive oil, we drove home in the dark with considerably less cash but a trunk full of Italian groceries, a Chinese battery saver, one dried lizard, and a rusty sacrificial dagger.
6. Stop Talking and Let Us Pay
Revisions to the battery saver were trivial compared to the ongoing discussions with Patrick about the lantern. After Whit conducted a thorough examination of the latest FEP sample, he sent Patrick an email detailing seven areas of concern before granting approval to place the initial order of three thousand units. Patrick responded to each concern, and Whit responded again. The conversation was cordial (the men respected each other as obsessive about quality) but with an undercurrent of urgency; Whit needed these lights soon. He had already been teasing the sample light in gong-gongs, and agents were getting impatient.
1) Final units will run well on alkaline or other primary cells with no damage to unit from higher voltage.
PW: I fixed this theoretically, but we will definitely test it thoroughly before shipping. I am waiting to get a handful of completed units to do more rigorous testing like you mention.
WA: Sounds good. If it doesn’t work, please advise before considering changes. We might be able to accept this limitation in the first run so long as we know about it up front.
2) Final units will withstand a drop to a hard surface from eight feet high and not break, continuing to operate normally.
PW: I will do more drop testing to make sure they don’t break in any permanent way, but depending on the angle it hits the ground the batteries are most likely going to come out. In my opinion this is really barely acceptable, but I don’t have any quick way to fix it. I think if we enlarged those undercuts, we might wind up with broken bosses when the heavy batteries try to find their way out and can’t. My suggestion would be to try enlarging the bosses after this production run, and hope for the best. If not, go back to the way it was or think of a better design. Including planning and testing and such this process will probably take 2 weeks or more, as it’s not a straight-pull mold.
WA: It is okay if the battery lid opens in this initial shipment. It is much more problematic if a drop from the ceiling breaks it permanently. If you are seeing this, let’s talk. Otherwise, let’s ship. I concur that we should find a more robust solution for the next shipment.
3) Final units will withstand monsoon rains in all orientations while operating and continue to operate normally.
PW: I think the units as is are water resistant at best. I don’t think we’re going to get waterproofness without a gasket. We are already on sample mold 2 in attempting to put a gasket in there, but I’m worried it makes the cover too difficult to close. We’re still playing with this and will update you—new samples are due on Monday. My guess is that with the waterproof switch, this thing will survive pretty well even if it gets water inside (for example while somebody has the cover off for battery replacement). We will also test this once we have enough units in hand.
WA: We can’t take a huge slip to dial in the gasket fit. If it works well in the Monday sample and is easy to integrate into production tooling, then great, otherwise, let’s get the cover fitting as nicely as we can over the next day or two and set realistic, tested expectations that we can position as best as possible for our clients in this initial run. I concur that in the next run we want to dial-in water resistance to support operating while exposed to monsoon rains. We do not need submersion capabilities, but it’s sure nice to have if the cost delta is close to nil.
4) Please confirm light will ship individually bagged in a reusable Ziploc bag.
PW: Clear zip lock bags—got it.
WA: Thanks!
5) Please attempt to get back cover fitting more flush with back of lamp. This sample has a perceptible edge where the cover rises above the back. I do not want to delay initial shipment for this, but want to express desire to improve this ASAP.
PW: I also noticed that the cover is sitting farther up than the first samples. I assume this is really hard to fix, but we will look into it. I also know that with the O-ring gasket I tried, it makes the cover sit slightly higher up and creates significant resistance when you try to turn it into the locked position. I’ve had a sample mold made up for a square gasket which should be ready by Monday and we will try this.
WA: Per above, let’s evaluate on Monday if we have a viable and superior solution with an incremental day. If not, the fit is acceptable for the first run assuming it doesn’t cause massive fail following even momentary exposure to moderate rains.
6) Would love to have our Do More pop more clearly. Let’s not slip further for this, but would want to dial it in down the road if it’s not a quick fix now. We should also be TM [trademark] and not circle-r. [U.S. federally registered trademark].
PW: Got it—to save time let’s make these tweaks after this run?
WA: Concur. Ship as is. Fix on next run.
7) Confirm increase in base circuit power consumption that has Super-Saver, lowest power mode drawing 8.5 to 9.0 mA.
PW: So this would be about right for 6 mA through the LED
s plus 2 mA through the MCU/opamp [the circuitry]. The first sample may have been running low—it’s hard to dial in that lowest current mode very accurately. At 8.5 mA / 2000 mAh you’re looking at 235 hours; is this sufficient or do we want to go to 6 mA total (4 mA LED) and 300 hours? I’d rather not tweak the code again but if you’re set on 300 hours I understand.
WA: Ship as is. Please don’t touch the code at this stage. I think it is fine. I just wanted to alert you that it seemed to be running a bit higher than the previous sample. We’ve been specifying runtime against 1800 mAH cell as our realistic level post field degradation. This puts us at slightly below 200 hours, but we’ll be fine. We’ll just change our positioning on it to be more like, “run it all night, every night for less than 5 pesewa a day.” The light is actually quite nice. Comps well to a candle. Can even read by it if in close proximity.
Let’s ship, ship, ship!
PW: Indeed!
WA: Seriously, Patrick. I really need you guys burning on this 24/7 until we ship.
Whit swallowed hard, reconciled himself to the tougher sell of a fifteen-cedi price, and wired Patrick a down payment on the first order. Burro’s first collaboration with Greenlight Planet was officially greenlit.
It was early November; the finished lanterns wouldn’t arrive until at least December and possibly January. Meanwhile, the new phone chargers were flying off the shelf, and as a result battery inventory was dwindling. Six thousand new batteries were on order, scheduled to be flown from Hong Kong to Accra on Air Emirates, via Dubai. That was in late October—just as al-Qaeda bombs were discovered in two packages originating from Yemen, one of them at a parcel facility in Dubai. Whit groaned at the news. He knew it would mean delays getting anything through Dubai, especially thousands of powerful batteries.
But there was little time to worry about bombs in Dubai. We had a gong-gong scheduled in a village called Akorabo, another new place west of town where Nii had trained a new agent. Like the reseller selection and training process, the protocol for an initial sales gong-gong had been refined and formalized. After the new agent had been trained and was ready to sell, Nii or Rose would consult with the chief and elders to schedule a sales gong-gong, at which one of them would present the Burro offering and products to the village and give the new agent a chance to sign up clients. In advance of the gong-gong, the agent was given a stack of promotional flyers bearing the date and time of the event. He distributed the flyers to villagers, who were encouraged to hold on to them by the promise of a raffle at the gong-gong: anyone with a flyer could enter the raffle and win a valuable prize—usually a green Burro T-shirt, which (to even Whit’s surprise) was rapidly becoming a status symbol in the area around Koforidua. The gong-gong was also a chance to preview new products, like the battery saver and the lantern, and get a feel for customer demand.
On the drive out to Akorabo, Whit coached Nii on how to introduce the lantern sample. “Tell them it’s a torchlight, it hangs on a wall, you can hold it on your head—it needs to be really short. The four settings are Super-Saver, Saver, Bright, and Super-Bright. If we actually name those modes, it will help explain what we’re trying to do. So if you’re spending five cedis a month on kerosene now, you’re gonna spend one cedi with this. Keep it really crisp and on-message.”
“Perfect,” said Nii.
We rolled into Akorabo in the Tata, speakers blaring the recorded Burro pitch. The place was already humming with activity. It was market day in some larger nearby town, and residents were rushing to prepare for departure, gathering baskets and packing their wares with the usual African trifecta of yelling, laughter, and commotion. Taxis brimming with sacks of cocoa beans, looking about as mobile as overstuffed sofas, groaned into motion. Dozens of passengers squeezed into crowded tro-tros like rush-hour commuters. In the village square, cocoa beans dried on a giant section of a four-color billboard print—thick rubbery paper that had been spread out on the ground like a carpet. The print had logos for the National Football League and the ESPN television network; giant faces of thick-necked American football players grinned out from under the fermenting beans. I tried to imagine how a section of an American football billboard had found its way to this distant off-grid village in Ghana. Did someone roll it up and stuff it into a Goodwill box outside a shopping mall in St. Louis? Did a church group haul it over in checked luggage, and why? Or was it counted as a charitable tax deduction by some corporation? Maybe it was part of the “5 percent of profits donated to charity” that some companies boast about. Every scenario I could think of begged the question, What were they thinking? Clearly no one in Akorabo had paid good money for it; when Ghanaians take the time and effort to build their own cocoa drying racks, they elevate them off the ground for maximum airflow and to keep goats and chickens away. This makeshift version, lying in the dirt, was far from ideal, but as a handout it would suffice.
We gathered in the shade of a tree. Nearby, a gasoline generator was set up under a corrugated metal-roofed gazebo, next to a sign that said CHARGE YOUR PHONE HERE. This was the competition. Children wandered up, many of them wearing school uniforms embroidered with badges identifying the Akorabo Islamic Primary School and the Akorabo Islamic Kindergarten. A man explained that the town had a zongo, the Ghanaian term for an Islamic section, as well as many Christian residents. The new agent, I forget his name, was Muslim. He had gone off to round up more villagers as Whit, Nii, and I took seats on a wooden bench.
Villagers started to arrive and sit down. Soon there were forty or fifty people, men and women, waiting for the gong-gong to begin. I looked out at the crowd and noticed that lots of people were clutching cedi notes in their hands. “Whit,” I said out of the side of my mouth, “I don’t know much about sales, but I’m gonna take a wild guess and say these people are ready to buy.”
“Do you think?”
Finally the gong-gong rang out and the show began. Nii ran through his standard demonstration of the phone charger (“CHAH-jing!” several people said), then pulled out the lantern sample. “Coming soon, this is our new torchlight,” he began. “It has four settings …”
But before he could go any further, a man in the crowd stood up. He was wearing a University of Georgia Bulldogs cap and a golf shirt from the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas. “White man!” he said to Whit, gesturing with a handful of crumpled bank notes. “Tell him to stop talking and let us pay! We need to get to market!”
“No more talking!” said another man. “We want to pay.”
Another stood up, then another, and another, as if we had just asked which one was Spartacus. And so began a buying frenzy not seen since the Dutch tulip bubble of 1637. One aspect of British culture that Ghanaians appear to have wholly rejected is the polite queue, so we were not totally surprised at the swarm that quickly engulfed us. And yet, as we stared at the jostling crowd and the outstretched arms holding cell phones to be tested (most but not all phones worked with the Burro phone charger) and money to be collected, we realized that this was something new for Burro. “Nii, you sign up the clients while I test their phones,” said Whit hurriedly.
“I’ll make change,” I said, grabbing the cash box. Within minutes we had fallen into a rhythm like short order cooks:
“He’s got four batteries. Make that four and a charger, with a Motorola plug.”
“Adapters, adapters, I need adapters here.”
“Change for a twenty on this woman, she bought four and a charger.”
“Give this guy a micro-USB. No, that’s a mini, he needs a micro, a micro.”
“Sir, where is your slip? You need to register first.”
“It’s a Nokia, old Nokia. No can do.”
“Try the blue diode.”
“She’s back for more batteries. Nii, change her slip to eight batteries. What’s your name, ma’am?”
“I’m dyin’ here, boys, my kingdom for an adapter.”
This went on for nearly two hours. People would buy chargers and batteries, then leave
and come back with more money, more phones to be tested, more orders for chargers and batteries. It didn’t even stop when a customer came running up holding his new phone charger, which was plugged into his phone and spewing black smoke, the wires melting in his hand.
“Unplug the phone!” said Whit, grabbing the charger and pulling out the hot batteries. “I’m very sorry. It must have some kind of short. Let’s get you a new one. But you can see how powerful our batteries are! Don’t worry, if your phone is damaged we will replace it.”
The man smiled. Whit looked relieved. “Note to self,” he added to Nii and me, “add a fuse to the next shipment.”
We finally ran out of chargers and D adapters, and nearly sold out all the batteries we had brought. Nii raffled off two T-shirts amid great applause, and after rounds of thank-yous and good-byes we drove off. Nii had another gong-gong scheduled that afternoon, but first we had to race home and restock.
“Well, that went well,” said Whit in the truck, with purposeful understatement. “Good job, Nii.” The pair started planning for the afternoon gong-gong, but I wasn’t paying attention. I was in the backseat, counting up the cash box. We had taken in two hundred and eighty cedis, a record. I wish Harper could have seen it.
Stop talking and let us pay!
As far as I was concerned, those six words pretty much said it all. Because while you could measure business success with any number of more sophisticated metrics (and Whit eventually would), you could get at the essence of success in that one sentence. You couldn’t get there with a handout. People will always accept handouts, because free is everyone’s favorite price. Ghanaians will dry their cocoa beans on the NFL billboard not because it is ideal, but because it is free. But when they tell you to shut up and throw money at you—that’s a pretty sure sign you’re on the right track.
Stop talking and let us pay!
It had been nearly three years since Bill Gates banged the gong-gong for creative capitalism, spurring a global discussion on helping the poor through profits that was still raging from classrooms to corner offices. In one corner of one country in the crucible of the developing world, it seemed to me that the time for talk was over.
Max Alexander Page 39